Mayweather rips HBO announcers for racial bias

GRAND RAPIDS -- Floyd Mayweather, who often heard himself pointedly criticized on HBO boxing telecasts, responded in kind Friday, during his first post-retirement interview.

Mayweather criticized the network's announcers for a bias against black fighters, and for not treating their own indiscretions as seriously as those committed by people they cover, during an exclusive interview with The Press.

"Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant, Emanuel Steward, they're always talking about the negative things in my life," Mayweather said. "But I've seen Jim Lampley in the same strip club as me before. They always want to talk about me going to strip clubs, but they don't want to talk about that.

Mayweather, the Grand Rapids native who returned home this weekend to host a holiday carnival and entertainment festival, was convicted on four counts of misdemeanor assault, and pleaded no contest to another, earlier in his career.

The convictions often proved fruitful topics for television one-liners.

"He caught a court case himself, too. But when they catch a case, all they do is take them off the air a couple weeks, then it's over."

Lampley, the lead announcer on HBO boxing, last year received three years' probation for violating a restraining order brought by a live-in girlfriend who accused him of domestic abuse. Lampley never was charged on the original abuse complaint.

HBO televised 21 of Mayweather's last 22 fights, either on its main network or pay-per-view arm.

The two sides have quibbled before, most notably after Mayweather in 1999 called a long-term offer from the network a "slave contract." The fallout led to more than a year of acrimony, during which Mayweather fought two low-level bouts on HBO, one of them a non-title match.

Mayweather ultimately signed a reworked long-term contract with the network, beginning with his 2001 breakthrough win over the late Diego Corrales.

Mayweather reserved most of his criticism Friday for HBO's announcers, though he did blame network executives for participating in a sequence of high-level business events which forced him to plead no contest to an assault he insists he did not commit.

Mayweather was charged in conjunction with the 2003 incident at The Radio Tavern, later destroyed in a fire, where bouncer William Morris -- a former school mate of Mayweather's -- was beaten and bloodied.

Mayweather denied the charge, but negotiations for his first pay-per-view main event, against Arturo Gatti, stalled when Gatti's promoter, Main Events, insisted Mayweather resolve the case first.

Mayweather in 2005 pleaded no contest, then rendered the Gatti fight no contest in a six-round pummeling.

He now says HBO sided with Main Events in pushing him to cop a plea.

"In the past, different things have gone on in my life, like that case in Grand Rapids," Mayweather said. "I know I didn't do anything wrong. But they said they couldn't make the fight if I didn't resolve that case. So I had to plead no contest to something I didn't do.

"I'm not going to do that, because that's not me. That's not who I am. That's not how I live. But I had to plead to something I didn't do because I wanted the Gatti fight, and HBO said they weren't going to make the fight while that case was hanging."

Mayweather was aware of the stir his comments will cause after they circulate this holiday weekend.

"I'm happy. I feel clear. I feel free as a bird," he said. "I feel good that I can finally speak out, and say the things I want to say."

He said HBO should return to a format in which a prominent former boxer serves as an analyst. Sugar Ray Leonard, George Foreman, Lennox Lewis, Roy Jones and Kevin Kelley are among the former champions who have served on the network's telecasts in years past.